Ugo Bardi
From:[email protected]
To:[email protected]
Tue, Aug 11 at 3:53 a.m.
Dear colleagues,
I apologize for not having commented earlier on this thread about Gaza. I have been heavily engaged in fending off an attack on my websites, nearly erased forever by hackers. The Internet is becoming a garden of poisoned mushrooms: censorship, trolls, hackers, bots, and plenty of people who seem to have no purpose in life other than staying at the keyboard to insult others. Fortunately, I could recover my work, and my sites are now restored and secure, or so I hope. You can read my comments on the story at:
https://senecaeffect.substack.com/p/the-seneca-cliff-of-the-internet
Now, about the discussion on Gaza on this mailing list, I am afraid that it is another manifestation of the involution of the Web. What we are seeing is its fragmentation into nearly impermeable “bubbles” that collect people who think in the same way, but who can’t communicate with others outside.
The case of Gaza is a clear illustration of this phenomenon. Is it a crime against humankind or a consequence of Israel’s right to self-defense? Personally, I lean toward the first interpretation, and I would favor a stronger statement by the Club of Rome on this matter. But Lene is doing us a favor by reminding us that there is still space for a debate.
The problem is that, outside this group, there is no real communication among people with different opinions. Compare the current situation with that of more than 50 years ago, when the Club was created and produced its first report, “The Limits to Growth.” Legend has it that it sold several million copies. It didn’t, but at least several hundred thousand copies was a remarkable number, an indication of how the thesis the Club was proposing had an impact. Some 30 years later, the “peak oil movement” had a similar global impact. It did generate opposition, but the message crossed all boundaries and was discussed everywhere.
But now? Can you imagine a report from the Club of Rome (or from any other similar organization) having that kind of impact? The latest message that crossed the boundaries was the meteoric cycle of Greta Thunberg. You may have noticed how it was demonized, then contained, and now the young Swedish lady is stuck inside a small bubble of supporters.
It is the bubble effect. We, as the CoR, are sealed inside our bubble. We can make all the noise we want, but it doesn’t moves out of the bubble’s boundary. If it does, the result is only insults or censorship.
It is not our fault; we have been trying to do our best. I would say that it is not anyone’s fault in particular. There are reasons, steeped into the dynamic behavior of complex systems, that led the Web to the current fragmentation. In many ways, it was unavoidable. And it is a serious problem, because people living in their specific bubble are convinced that they are doing what they are doing for the best reasons and for the sake of humankind. When they encounter people with different opinions, they become convinced that they are dumb or evil.
Let me comment on this point with a sentence by Aurelien, a former diplomat who writes about geopolitical matters.
“To some extent, Mr Trump’s vulgar blustering is just the ultimate caricature of recent American political speech generally, especially as it involves other nations. This speech implicitly divides the world into friends and enemies: friends to be told what to do, enemies to be destroyed. In neither cases do any adverse consequences flow from this way of thinking and speaking: until now, anyway. In effect, US politicians have inherited an entire discourse which excludes all subtlety and nuance, and which is almost entirely domestic, in the sense that it is overwhelmingly intended to impress other players in Washington with how tough and extreme you are. The practical effect on countries you may be threatening or giving instructions to is not considered relevant: until now, anyway. The question of which is the cart and which is the horse has become largely theoretical: after several generations, it has become impossible to speak, and therefore to act, in Washington, except in this discourse of violence and intimidation. Moreover, if part of the only discourse you have available is that the US military is the most wonderfulest in history, and can easily defeat any opponent, then that helps to determine the limits of your world, and the limits of what you think is possible. Which is a problem when things start to go badly wrong, and you encounter events for which your discourse has no words. ”
If you doubt this evaluation, I urge you to discuss geopolitical matters with the EU representatives or bureaucrats you know in Brussels. My range of contacts there may not be statistically significant, but it perfectly agrees with Aurelien’s interpretation.
Aurelien does not comment on why we find ourselves in this situation, but in my opinion, it descends directly from the fragmentation of the communication system. There are immensely powerful forces pushing in that direction. I have a personal interpretation that sees the trend not only generated by internal dynamic factors, but actively favored by the world’s financial powers. At present, money is, in fact, the only communication entity that can freely move across bubble boundaries. And with the bubbles shrinking and multiplying, all forces able, at least in principle, to oppose the power of money disappear. And much of what we are seeing can be explained in this way.
There follows that we should try to maintain and expand true global views that transcend the current fragmentation. But we are going against the grain — right now we are mostly powerless, and independent think tanks, in particular, may have become fully obsolete except as supporting entities created by big money. Nevertheless, things always change, and what we see as unavoidable today may become hopelessly outdated in the future. Maybe in the future we’ll see a new humanism rising?
So, we keep going and doing our best
Sorry for this rather overlong post; I hope you may find at least some parts of it interesting.
Ugo